


A YEAR, AN ETERNITY

by DeanLantern



Category: Cable and Deadpool, Deadpool - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Time Traveler's Wife, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-19
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2018-12-04 00:26:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11543592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeanLantern/pseuds/DeanLantern
Summary: The first time Wade actually met Nathan, he was seven years old and his mom was dying.The Time Traveler's Wife AU





	1. 7 & 43

 

The first time Wade actually met Nathan, he was seven years old and his mom was dying.

Wade had peaked out of the window once he had heard a weird popping sound from outside and saw something fantastic.

The stranger who Nathan still was at the time appeared in a bright glow out of the blue on their front lawn. He was dressed in a weird blue suit that clung to his skin and showed off his muscles. Here and there a few yellow accessories could be seen. The left arm shone as if it was wrapped up in aluminum foil. Or at least that was the solution Wade‘s mind could come up with at seven years old. People didn‘t just have metal arms. But well, people didn‘t also just appear out of the blue. Though Wade could explain the weirdly glowing left eye. The stranger looked cool for a lack of a better word. But what was he doing here?

Wade was already smart enough to not just run out to a strange man he didn‘t know but curiosity got the better of him and he ran over to the door to look through the mail box opening.

They currently lived with Frank, the latest of his mom’s boyfriends. He was the meanest of them all but so far he had never hurt Wade. Just yelled at him and scared him. His mom needed someone to take care of her now though so Wade endured all of his behavior. He was a good boy as often as he could be.

Frank was currently at work while his mom slept upstairs. Wade had wanted to stay with her for today seeing as she was getting progressively worse and Frank had once again yelled at him until his mom had intervened. In the end, he had been allowed to stay at home for today. He had tried to read one of his books to his mom until she fell asleep. He had stumbled over the words even though all the other kids at school could already read them without problems. Instead of laughing at him like so many others did, his mom just smiled warmly and called him a smart boy for already being able to read so well. Wade knew she was lying but he appreciated what she was trying to do anyway. Wade was actually quite smart and it wasn’t his fault the words got jumbled in his brain and on his tongue. What he couldn’t read he learned through hearing and already knew a lot of words in many different languages like Spanish and Japanese.

Though when he opened the door to look closer at the stranger, he couldn’t understand a word of the language he spoke. It sounded like nothing Wade had ever heard before. He was no longer standing on the front lawn but crouching and holding his shiny hand to his side. Wade smelled blood. That was a smell he would never be able to forget since his mom had vomited up a lot of it a few weeks ago.

Wade peeked outside but could see nobody. Not even their snobby neighbor from two houses down. He could also hear no birds singing or cars honking or even the wind in the trees. Everything was completely silent. Except for him and the blue-clad stranger on his front lawn. That was worth repeating.

Wade could hear a pained groan from the stranger and took a step forward onto the porch where he stilled. Was it such a good idea to go out now? Something weird was definitely going on. He just didn’t know what was causing it. Or at least Wade could guess who was causing it.

By now, the stranger had noticed him and gotten up as well as he could right now. The was blood on his blue suit that had already dirtied some of the yellow parts and his white hair was sweaty and clung to his forehead.

Their eyes met for a moment and Wade couldn’t breathe. The one glowing eye seemed to be white and most likely blind while the other eye was as blue as the sea and seemed to pull Wade in. Wade blinked and the moment seemed gone.

“Who are you?” Wade asked the stranger who tried to smile at him but it looked more like a grimace.

“Ah. So we haven’t met before.” Something on his face changed from before as if what Wade had just said made sense to him on a whole different level. “How old are you?” The man in blue asked.

Wade wanted to say _I don’t answer to strange men on my front lawn!_ but what came out instead was: “I’m seven but who **are** you?”

The stranger couldn’t seem to stand up any longer and crouched hands first on the grass again unitl he was sitting, his long legs stretched out in front of him.

“Hello Wade. My name is Nathan.”

Wade was taken aback about how he knew who he was.

“How do you know my name?”

Had they met before? Wade was extremely sure that they hadn’t and he didn’T seem like a friend of Frank either. He was too nice for that so far.

“You don’t know it yet but we are going to meet a lot from on and you’re going to be very important to me. I just won’t know it for a long time.”

Wade ducked his head in embarrassment. He knew he wasn’t. The stranger had to be lying. The only person he was important to was dying.

“No. I’m not important. Frank says so.”

He hadn’t meant to say that last part but so far Wade hadn’t meant to say a lot of the things he did during this conversation. It almost felt as if being with this stranger – Nathan – made him tell the truth. He just didn’t know why.

“Are you controlling my mind?”

Nathan smiled sadly as if he was remembering something he would rather forget or undo if he could.

“No. I wouldn’t. Not again.”

“Again? What do you mean?” Wade asked curiously. Nathan was a very, very strange man so far. But he was interesting and friendly and warm and reminded Wade of all the things he was going to loose in a few weeks when his mom died.

Something must have shown on Wade’s face as Nathan opened his mouth to speak when his face suddenly became pale and he grimaced.

“I have to go, Wade. But we will meet again. I swear it. I just might not be able to remember you yet.”

“What?”

Open confusion showed on Wade’s face but Nathan had already disappeared in another bright glow and left Wade behind on his front lawn with the sounds returning all around him.

Nathan would be right, though. It wasn’t the last time he met Nathan.


	2. 7 & 51

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The next time Wade met Nathan was at his mother’s funeral. Nathan was smiling a warm but sad smile and for the first time, it didn’t make Wade angry because Nathan seemed to understand.

The next time Wade met Nathan was at his mother’s funeral. He almost didn’t recognize the not so strange man since he got so much older during the last few months. His white hair was now an almost snow white military crew cut like his uncle had, too. No one seemed to notice the enormous giant of a man standing among them. His shiny metal arm, because that had to be metal after all,was  covered in his brown  trench coat . Wade tried his hardest not to look at Nathan but his eyes keep wandering over to him. It’s better than having to listen to all the crying and sniffling around him and to look at the casket that now holds his mother inside. Wade still didn’t know how to feel about that. He had known for a long time by now that his mom was dying but in the end it had been a thing of mere hours. One moment she was still there and the next she was gone. Poof. Like a cloud on a sunny day. Just vanished into oblivion with no one the wiser. The cancer had eaten at her and finally reached her brain. That had been what had killed her in the end. A brain tumor. Not that Wade fully knew what that was yet. But that wasn’t his fault. No one had wanted to tell him. Either he was too young (the doctors) or too stupid (Frank) to understand. Wade would have liked to read about it but his school library had no book on cancer or any illness really and Frank refused to get him a card for the city library.

Once again Wade looked at Nathan. The older man had stared straight ahead the entire time but now he was looking at Wade. Nathan was smiling a warm but sad smile and for the first time, it didn’t make Wade angry because Nathan seemed to understand. 

All week, Wade had heard so many people telling him how brave he was, that they were so sorry, that they knew wheat he was going through, that it was better this way. But how could it be better. His mom was dead and he was all on his own now. He didn’t really have a dad who could look after him now. He only had Frank who was kind of his step father since his mom had married him a few weeks ago so he could become Wade’s legal guardian and look after him.  Wade didn’t like Frank and Frank didn’t like Wade in return. Something about his new stepdad just rubbed him the wrong way. Wade just hadn’t figured out what yet. 

The priest said something about his mother and her passing but Wade was no longer listening. He quickly looked around but no one seemed to pay any attention to him. Well, except for Nathan who was still looking and smiling at him. Normally Wade would be creeped out by such and old man smiling at him but with Nathan it just felt right. He had only met him once before and for a very short time but he already felt safe with him. As if he had known him a life time already. 

When Wade was completely sure no one was watching him, he sneaked over to the old man and in a touch of melancholy and childish neediness, he pressed his tiny body against Nathan’s side and hid his little face and Nathan’s big coat. He could feel one of Nathan’s gigantic hands softly touch his hair to comfort him while Wade shivered silently and smeared tears and snot into the cloth.

The world around them seemed to quieten again but when Wade lifted his head again, everybody was still moving and talking. He looked up at Nathan for an explanation.

“My time matrix was broken last time around. It isn’t fully fixed now either and most likely never will be, but it doesn’t cause a time bubble unless I want it to.”

With these words everything finally seemed to freeze around them. Only now Wade noticed it must have started drizzling and touched a few tiny droplets that burst immediately on his fingers. It tingled on his finger whenever he touched another one still pressed to Nathan’s side.

“Don’t overdo it, Wade. I don’t want you to accidentally end outside of the bubble as well.”

Wade’s normal response to be defiant rose up inside of him but something about Nathan’s tone as if it was a simple fact and not an order made him reconsider his actions. So he pulled his now slightly wet hand back and wiped it on Nathan’s most likely ruined coat.

Wade would have almost apologized for that. Almost. But Nathan didn’t even seem to fully register that a child had just cried into his clothing.

Nathan still hadn’t taken his hand away and as nice as the feeling of being petted was, Wade wasn’t a baby anymore. He really didn’t need that. So he told Nathan.

“Could you take your hand away, Nathan? You ruining my hair.”

Not that the drizzle hadn’t already taking care of that. Nope, it was all Nathan’s fault. 

“I’m sorry.” Nathan answered with another smile. This one was much happier as if he was delighted in seeing Wade. But that couldn’t be true right? Why would he be happy to see him? But Nathan had said that Wade would be important to him someday, hadn’t he?

“What’s on your mind?” The old man asked.

“How come you like me?” Wade blurted out. Once again his tongue had been fast than the majority of his brain.

Nathan chuckled. 

“Why not? You make me laugh, you are fiercly loyal once you give someone your heart and you’re actually an interesting person if someone bothers to get to know you.”

Wade had a feeling that Nathan didn’t say things like these all that often and no one had ever said anything like this to him so he blushed lightly. He didn’t hide his face again and looked curiously at the white-haired man.

At first glance, he looked incredibly rough and strict, but Wade knew that Nathan was at least just as kind and warm-hearted as that. 

Nathan looked around himself for a moment and seemed to fully take in where they were.

“Something tells me you won’t see me much older than this that often. Maybe once or twice but that will be it.”

“What do you mean?”

Wade was confused. Why did Nathan have to once again speak in riddles? Couldn’t he just say what he meant? Was that so hard? Apparently, since he kept doing it.

“It means that my journey will hopefully be over soon and I can finally stay home.”

Wade didn’t know exactly why but he was suddenly scared of losing Nathan. He had just gotten him! It wasn’t fair!

“You can’t go!” Wade yelled in his squeaky little kid’s voice. “You can’t leave me!”

Nathan  raked his fingers through Wade’s hair again.

“Wade. I will never leave you. Not now that I have finally found you. I will always come back. You have to remember that. No matter what.”

But fear and the pain of just having lost his mother were still deep inside of him and Wade pressed his face into Nathan’s side again to anchor himself in this strange man’s presence and smell. But before Wade could answer him through the hiccups that were coming now, Nathan had disappeared again and left him behind all on his own.

When Wade got home, he stole a notebook from his mom out of her old room and wrote down every tiny detail he remembered about Nathan the strange man that seemed to keep appearing in Wade’s life and that Wade would one day be very important to.


	3. 11 & 46

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this chapter took me so long. Thank you all for all the kudos, bookmarks and the very nice comments. :)  
> Since I've only fleshed out certain pieces of the story so far we'll probably spring back and forth a bit during the next few chapters. I hope I'll be able to write these a bit faster...

Over the years, Wade had gotten used to Nathan‘s random visits that only he seemed to really notice. Sure, other people could see Nathan and interact with him so that ruled out the option of Nathan just being a figment of Wade‘s over-eager imagination. And now at 11 years old, Wade would have been way too old for an imaginary friend anyway. Especially after what had happened today. For the last 2 years Wade had constantly been picked on by a few other guys from his class. After his mother’s death a lot of people had been friendly towards Wade which would have been nice if it hadn’t taken his mother dying first. Frank had taken up drinking and stayed away from home and at bars a lot of times. He had come after Wade a few times, but Wade was usually to quick for him to catch and hid until the worst was over. The times that Wade wasn’t fast enough to get away from Frank, he paid the price for his failure and hid the bruises for the next few days until they faded. Interestingly enough, Nathan had never appeared so far when Wade’s step-father was in one of his moods. He didn’t know what he actually wanted to happen. Wade didn’t love Frank. Not even close. But here was his home and he had nowhere else to go. Nathan had made it clear before when Wade had asked him that the old man couldn’t take the boy with him where ever he went when he disappeared. So that left the orphanage and Wade certainly didn’t want to go there. So he hid the bruises and cuts and kept on going. Until Mitchell Fletcher decided to pick on him at the wrong time.

Fletcher was a mean-looking 12 year old with short-cropped blond hair and a constant sneer on his face. Since Wade was way too small and skinny for his age, the older boy towered over him. What Fletcher didn’t know yet (and neither did Wade until that fateful moment) what Wade lacked in body strength he made up for in guts.

 

It had been another ordinary day full of pushing Wade around and ridiculing him in front of his class mates. Frank had been particular mean the evening before and manage to hit Wade a bit harder than usual so Wade was wearing a long-sleeved shirt to cover up his injuries. He also had a black eye that wasn’t as easy to cover up. He could feel the others looking at it but no one really said anything. Wade was already known as something of a trouble maker so people probably assumed he had gotten it in a fight with other children. That so far Wade had never really fought back when he got shoved into lockers and toilets, got ignored. Even some of his teachers had yelled at him when Mitchell and his friend shoved him around as if he had actually started it.

It finally happened during recess when Mitchell grabbed Wade’s arm to casually slam him once again into one of the lockers. Wade snapped. He let Mitchell pull him around and used the momentum to slam his fist into the other’s nose. Wade could feel Mitchell’s nose breaking under his fist but it didn’t stop him from continuing. He started hitting Mitchell as hard as he possibly could and even Wade himself was surprised how much strength there was in his skinny arms. In the beginning, Mitchell was too shocked to really react while his friends just stood around with wide eyes and gaping like fish.

In the end, Mitchell started fighting back but the pain in his broken nose was so much that he shortly after started crying and in the end, one of the teachers pulled Wade of the older boy and hauled him straight towards the principal’s office where he was told to wait until his father arrived.

Wade was doomed.

 

In the end, surprisingly enough, it was Nathan who showed up and not Frank. The man looked a bit older than he did most other times and something around his eyes made him look much older than he probably was. Nathan sat down next to Wade on one of the rickety chairs in front of the principal’s office who was probably still busy with something.

Wade looked at Nathan with wide eyes. By now, he really knew that Nathan showed up out of the blue whenever he felt like it and he had helped him before but every single time, Wade was just as surprised.

Nathan seemed to sense what Wade was thinking.

“I had a feeling you would need me here today.” Nathan said in his usual calm voice. He didn’t seem angry but Nathan usually didn’t seem angry.

“Are you angry at me?” Wade asked to be sure. Wade knew that Frank would be livid whenever he found out what had happened here.

Nathan just kept looking at him with his cool blue eye. Wade didn’t know for sure but it seemed like Nathan’s techno eye glowed even brighter than normal. What did it mean?

“Should I be?” The older man finally asked. Still calm. Still friendly.

Wade ducked his head and looked at Nathan through his lashes. His shoulders came up self-consciously without him fully noticing.

“I dunno.” He mumbled. His step-father would have been angry at him. More than just angry. His teachers were angry at him. Wade knew in theory that you didn’t hurt other people like he had just done. Of course he did but what had he been supposed to do? Just take it and let Mitchell Fletcher keep picking on him? Maybe it hadn’t been the smartest idea to punch him but it had felt good. Exhilarating even.

“Why did you do it?”

Wade had heard the question before from his teacher but this time around he was actually almost inclined to answer. Because it was Nathan asking him.

“I know you usually don’t hurt people without a reason.” Nathan kept going. “So why did you do it?” 

He sounded as if he actually cared about what Wade had to say so Wade finally did answer.

“He kept picking on me. Pushing me around, throwing things at me, making fun of me in front of the others.”

“So he’s a bully.”

“Yeah. I don’t like bullies.”

That one he remembered from his favorite hero Captain America. He hadn’t liked bullies either and had never kept his mouth shut when something bad was happening. It was why he had joined Project Rebirth in the first place. Sometimes, Wade wished he was Captain America. With his way too small and weak body he knew exactly what his hero had gone through. And just like Captain America Wade wasn’t going to take it anymore. He clenched his fists in anger and Nathan took one of them into one of his own giant hands that engulfed Wade’s completely. Nathan squeezed it lightly and then let go again. Wade took a deep breath and tried to calm down. It wouldn’t help anyone if he blew up in front of the principal’s office.

“He called my stepfather to pick me up and talk to the principal.”

Nathan’s lips curled up into a quiet snarl like it always did whenever Wade even brought up Frank’s name in one of their conversations. The older man didn’t really like him even though they hadn’t ever met as far as Wade could tell.

“They did call someone. That is true.”

Then Nathan’s face shifted until he smiled slightly again and held up a small futuristic-looking device. It looked like something straight out of a science fiction movie as things usually did with Nathan. Who was a time traveler himself. Wade allowed himself to be a bit jealous at how cool Nathan’s life seemed at times.

Wade looked at the device again and had a slight idea what had happened.

“Did you…?” He trailed off because he wasn’t quite sure what exactly to ask.

“Let’s just say that they _think_ they reached your step-father and let us leave it at that.”

“So what are you going to do? Talk to him yourself?”

Nathan simply nodded.

How was Nathan supposed to pull that off? The principal was an old friend of Frank’s. He would immediately realize that Nathan was not Wade’s step-father and Frank would be even more furious. He knew that mutants existed and Nathan’s metal arm certainly didn’t help to hide that fact. So was Nathan a mutant? Still begged the question how he wanted to pull off his trick. Did he have metal claws or energy beams that he could use to intimidate the principal? Was he a shapeshifter? A telepath?

Wade didn’t know what he had expected but “I  _am_ a telepath.” certainly wasn’t it. It had just been a stupid idea. 

“You were thinking particularly loud. I couldn’t fully ignore it.”

The boy’s head whipped around and saw Nathan smiling mysteriously.

“Wait! What?!”

Was that why most times people didn’t even seem to see Nathan? Was he controlling their minds? Wade was actually pretty sure that Nathan wasn’t controlling his. For starters he felt like himself and he had known Nathan for several years by now. Wouldn’t he have noticed something by now if he was controlling him? But wasn’t that what people always thought when they were being controlled?

Nathan kept smiling his mysterious smile as if he hadn’t just said something outrageous.

“Please keep your voice down, Wade. It is hard enough shielding us as it is.”

Several questions raced through Wade mind but the loudest kept being  _Does he know?_ And the way Nathan was looking at him, he couldn’t be quite sure that he didn’t.

“Whatever you are thinking about right now, don’t worry. I am not making an effort to read your mind without permission. I can’t control people against their will. Though I _will_ be able to fully fool them and make them think they talked to Frank Wilson. But I won’t be able to keep the ruse up for too long so we will have to hurry a bit.”

Then the smile suddenly drooped on one side until it had completely fallen away and Nathan actually look saddened for the first time since Wade knew him.

“At the moment, my powers aren’t what they used to be.” 

It came out in a quiet compressed voice as if it hurt Nathan to admit it. The man looked down at his hands which were clenched into fists on his thighs. Without thinking Wade reached out and wrapped his hand around the nearest one and squeezed comfortingly.

“We’re gonna do this. You can totally pull this off, Nathan. I believe in you.”

Nathan looked up at him with a surprised look and slowly relaxed his fists until they rested calmly on his legs again. Wade nodded once and pulled his hand back as if he had just managed something magnificent. Maybe he had.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is just an idea that suddenly popped into my brain at 2 am after seeing this picture:  
> https://theerosmonster.tumblr.com/post/161899916755/the-time-travelers-husband-23-years-old-nate  
> and had to be written in one go. So this is not beta read or anything really.  
>   
> I hope I'll be able to continue this so hop on for a wild ride on the rollercoaster of feelings. It's not going to end well. I don't thing it's real spoiler but if you've read The Time Traveler's Wife you know how this is suppossed to end.  
>   
> The title is part of a quote from The Time Traveler's Wife.


End file.
